Real ID & Battle Tags

Towards the end of Cata ( I can say that now, since we are almost there) with the decrease of activity going on in the servers people were forced to use things like Openraid, throwing around their real Id’s to do things like Raiding , and what we used them for, Rated BG’s because there were never enough people online or interested on your realm in doing what you wanted to so xrealm recruiting became a norm.

In the space of 2 weeks I had added more people to real ID then I had since inception. I liked playing with these people. They are from different realms/have alts, and were also keen to do Rated BG’s, and the desire to do stuff out weighed any misgivings I had about sharing my real name.

I only had one funny moment ” Why won’t you add me to Facebook?” when he couldn’t find me by searching for my real name. But no buildings fell down, I didn’t get any crazy stalkers, and I didn’t add everyone I played with and the list of keen people who love pvping, and want to do Rated BG’s is sitting there waiting for when we all hit 90 and are looking for other able and eager people wanting to throw themselves in as soon as we can.

I removed someone on the list in a bad pug pick up group because we were losing and a whiny rouge wouldn’t stop whining. To the point I got snarky at him and suggested in case he started whining for heals I was letting him know I couldn’t get to him in time. I got kicked after the loss. No reason to keep them if I didn’t want to play with them.

I know a lot of people were hesitant, or even refused to use real ID. Battle tags became of way of adding people without having to share emails, and it even got to the point where because you can see friends your friends a real life friend wanted me to roll an alt with them, but wouldn’t add me to real ID so we could play together because people on their list didn’t want other people to see their names.

I’m not saying there isn’t still a risk in unmasking the Avatar, and the battle tag option is a welcome alteration to real id, but I am feeling a little more comfortable with the idea then I did when it first came out.